


Tumblr meta

by 100indecisions



Series: Fandom non-fiction [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Fandom Non-Fiction, Meta, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2019-09-20 16:48:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17026440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/100indecisions/pseuds/100indecisions
Summary: I don't have a whole lot of meta posts on Tumblr, but I have enough to want to save them somewhere with Tumblr apparently trying to flush itself down the toilet. How complete this ends up being will depend on how willing I am to comb through years of poorly tagged Tumblr posts and how broad I decide I want to be for what counts as "meta." (At least for as long as Tumblr exists in usable form, each chapter will include a link to the original post; if you're also on Tumblr and you like what I wrote, feel free to reblog the original.)





	1. Loki in Ragnarok and why I'm proud of him

([Originally posted Nov. 7, 2017](http://thelightofthingshopedfor.tumblr.com/post/167246355437/major-spoilers-for-thor-ragnarok-and-i-cant-use))

I am extremely proud of Loki Odinson, my very own child, for finally starting to make better life choices

(no but for real though, one thing that’s really struck me in thinking more about his actions in Ragnarok compared to the other movies is just how much of what he’s done previously has been purely reactive–he’s still making choices, but in many cases they’re significantly constrained by others or otherwise in response to others, whether that’s expressed by lashing out at somebody, taking defensive action, or otherwise feeling like he’s backed into a corner and making the best of some very bad and limited options, looking out for himself because (he believes) no one else cares to. I can’t remember if he actually says “I had no choice” at any point but I feel like the idea is there in the first Thor movie, especially when he’s telling the Warriors that he’s the reason Odin rescued them from Jotunheim and also by the way Thor’s not ready to be king, and it just kind of keeps snowballing from there, decision after terrible decision made in response to Thor, Odin, the Warriors, Thanos and the Other, Thor and Odin again. His suicide attempt at the end of the first movie is a prime example–he’s making a choice, arguably, but I don’t think it seemed that way to him. I think it felt like letting go was his only real option. This is especially true again in TDW, where he’s reacting to and going along with others’ plans; even taking Odin’s throne at the end is as much a reaction  _against_  Odin and Thor as it is a choice  _for_  something.

And then in Ragnarok? Well, he starts out that way. He’s been generally fucking around on Asgard for three years and working out some of his issues in weird ways, again in reaction to Thor and Odin; then Thor shows up and Loki lets himself get dragged around, resulting in Loki somewhat stranded on Sakaar and again opportunistically making the best (…his best, anyway) of a not-super-ideal situation he didn’t choose. He keeps going in that vein for a while, where everything he does is some kind of reaction to the Grandmaster and an attempt to manipulate the existing situation, and I would bet that if he’d had a chance to talk longer when he was going to sell Thor out again, he would’ve said something along the lines of “come on, brother, you know what the Grandmaster’s like, I have to keep him happy, I didn’t have a choice.”

Except Thor is completely done with that. He short-circuits the whole process and leaves on a suicide mission to save Asgard because that’s  _his_  choice, and he forces Loki to think about  _what he actually wants_  and  _make a choice_.

Once Korg showed up, Loki had plenty of options. He could’ve stayed on Sakaar and taken advantage of the revolution either to ingratiate himself with the Grandmaster or take over. He could’ve taken a ship and gone literally anywhere. Maybe Hela would’ve hunted him down eventually, but it’s a big universe and he’s good at disguising himself. He probably could’ve managed pretty well. Thor probably would’ve died, Asgard would’ve been destroyed, but Loki would survive by looking out for himself. He’s good at that too, after all. No one could really blame him for not wanting to throw his life away on a suicide mission.

Or he could do…the stupid thing. The Thor thing, not to put too fine a point on it. He could go through a not-really-stable wormhole, play the Big Damn Hero for once, and jump in on what is probably the losing side of a battle against the actual Goddess of Death. He could try to help Thor and save as many Asgardians as possible while running an extremely good chance of dying in the process.

And faced with that choice, he chooses Asgard. He chooses Thor. He  _commits_ , putting himself between Asgard’s people and their enemies and then going even further into danger without hesitation on what could’ve easily been a one-way trip to raise Surtur. He returns to Asgard’s remnant on the ship when it really would’ve been reasonable to take off and do his own thing after having helped save the day. He chooses–several times over–to take the hard, dangerous route for the sake of his people and his brother.

And I’m so fucking proud of him.)

* * *

 

(An additional note, after Tumblr user [191811110](https://191811110.tumblr.com/) commented, "It’s interesting to see that seen in a context of choice and not of duty":  

Well, I think that might be part of it, but duty seems like a much stronger motivator for Thor (and only part of the time for him, considering he resisted being made king until it was unavoidable), so I don’t see it as quite as much of a huge thing for Thor to do what he did. But I don’t remember duty really coming up much for Loki as far as his motivations go. The fact that he eventually decided to act in a way appropriate to a sense of duty to his people, in a major departure from his previous behavior, indicates that it was in fact a conscious, deliberate choice. What that says to me is, kiddo’s come a long way, and that’s why I’m proud of him.)


	2. Loki's last words

([Originally posted June 16, 2018](http://thelightofthingshopedfor.tumblr.com/post/167246355437/major-spoilers-for-thor-ragnarok-and-i-cant-use))

In an effort to make myself feel a little better about Infinity War and  _certain events_ therein, I want to talk about something that’s sad but in a not-completely-crushingly-awful way:

specifically, I want to talk about the contrast between Loki’s last words to Thanos and his last words to Kurse (because he absolutely did not expect to survive being impaled,  _fight me_ ).

The similarities between “See you in Hel, monster” and “you will never be a god” are pretty obvious—Loki just has to get in the last word somehow, because he wouldn’t be Loki if he didn’t, and both lines show him being stubborn and defiant, metaphorically spitting in the face of the being that killed him. But the similarities are kind of superficial; it’s the differences that interest me. With Kurse, of course, it was a bitterly triumphant taunt, because at that point Kurse knew he was going to die too. Loki’s dying, but he’s won because he’s taking his mother’s killer with him, and he wants to make sure Kurse knows it.

With Thanos, well…at least assuming we’re to take the scene as presented (which is what I’m trying to accept, because then I’ll be less disappointed if Avengers 4 shows that to be the case, even as it’ll free up mental bandwidth to focus on better AUs if I’m not stressing as much about canon), there’s no trick, no triumph. Loki played his last gamble and it failed, and now he’s going to die. He has to hope that Thor will be able to beat Thanos somehow, eventually, but maybe he won’t, and in any case Loki won’t be there to see it. So although his last words sound like a taunt to Thanos, and they would function that way in a different context, they really don’t this time. You could say, for that reason, that Loki’s last words to Thanos are empty—or you could say that they’re less for Thanos at all and more for Loki himself (and maybe Thor, although it’s hard to say if Thor heard that part).

And that’s a  _very_  interesting way to look at it, because another difference is, Loki’s last words to Thanos took a lot more effort. With Kurse, he’s been impaled and he’s not doing good, but in that specific moment he was probably running on adrenaline and the high of having successfully taken revenge, which I imagine would help, and he wasn’t actively fighting; plus, he had the strength for a brief conversation with Thor even after Kurse imploded. With Thanos, again, none of those things are true. Despair would be a reasonable reaction, for one thing. For another, I mean, Thanos is literally strangling him to death. All of Loki’s strength is devoted to two things: trying and failing to fight for his life, and trying and failing to breathe. He doesn’t have energy or air to waste on saying something that isn’t going to make a difference, but he forces the words out anyway because it’s important to him to say it—more important, we could infer, than his last words to Kurse.

That’s the part that I find…well, encouraging isn’t the right word. Bittersweet, if anything; sad but in a not-completely-crushingly-awful way, and it adds to how  _proud_  I am of my disaster child that I love so much. Because the biggest contrast between “See you in Hel, monster” and “you will never be a god” is what it says about Loki himself, or rather, how Loki sees himself. Sure, he’s calling Kurse a monster destined for Hel, but he’s saying the exact same thing about himself. His death in the process of killing Kurse was the best he could hope for at that point, the best use of Asgard’s pet monster. He’d done something good and got his revenge, but that didn’t change the way he saw himself, as a monster who deserved nothing better than eternity in Hel. 

But by Ragnarok, a few years have passed, and although we haven’t actually seen it happening, it’s clear that Loki’s been doing some healing, in his own unconventional way. He’s had time to deal with some of his issues and reframe the narrative of his own life, and maybe he’ll never be completely happy with who and what he is (Asgardian, Jotun, son of Odin and Frigga, brother of Thor, God of Mischief), but…he’s begun to make peace with it. Coming back to Asgard and to Thor at the end of the movie cements that—and everything he says to Thanos explicitly affirms it.

“You will never be a god” is a statement about Thanos, sure. But it’s a statement about Loki, too. He’s not just a monster, and he’s not just the pawn Thanos made him. He’s a god. He’s  _Loki_. After his very sense of self was shattered in Odin’s vault and everything that happened after, Loki knows who he is again. He is  _himself_ again, right up to his last breath, and nobody can take that away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This general idea later made it into [an actual fic I wrote](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15462567), although not all of it...and both of them did make me feel a little better.


	3. Endgame is so damn weird

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **SPOILERS FOR ENDGAME, YOU'VE BEEN WARNED**

([Originally posted May 6, 2019](https://thelightofthingshopedfor.tumblr.com/post/184695899117/i-finally-figured-out-how-to-describe-the-thing))

I finally figured out how to describe the thing that continues to baffle me the most about Endgame, which is: major parts of it feel too much like The Last Jedi.

I don’t mean that in an inherently negative way, because I didn’t hate The Last Jedi; I had some issues with it as a movie, some of which boiled down to “I understand what you wanted to do here and it worked, it’s just not what I want from the movies I watch” and some of which was more “I think I see what you were trying to do here but it didn’t really work,” but I didn’t hate it, certainly not the way a whole bunch of Mostly Dudes On The Internet did. one thing that definitely does stand out though–whatever your opinion on it might be–is that TLJ and The Force Awakens were made by different directors with different visions. some things that are teased in TFA are dismissed, left unanswered, or lightly mocked in TLJ, because it’s a different creative team that was more interested in exploring other narrative/thematic threads than the questions TFA raised (and which Abrams may or may not have had answers to, who knows).

In Infinity War, I’m pretty sure Steve never mentions Peggy. Thor doesn’t mention Jane. Thor  _does_  mention Loki specifically, a couple times; he also watches Loki brutally murdered in front of him (in a very serious, tragic scene that seems to lay very clear groundwork for a later reveal), reacts with helpless horror and grief, seems perfectly willing to die with Loki’s body, and tells Rocket he has nothing left to lose. his grief is raw and heartbreaking; it’s treated seriously, and it drives him to risk his life making Stormbreaker and then makes him more powerful in battle than ever before.

and then there’s Endgame, and it literally feels like it was created by somebody else. Steve is all about Peggy again. Thor is hung up on Jane and doesn’t mention Loki even once, even when he  _actually sees him_  in another timeline; throughout the entire film, his grief and trauma are treated as a joke. he does get to be badass again at the very end, but it doesn’t last very long and it’s not even close to his portrayal in IW.

like, if I watched these two movies without knowing anything else about who made them or when they were released, I would automatically assume they had different directors and that they’d been made at least a couple years apart, by people who had very different favorite characters and didn’t like the previous directors’ favorites very much. I would assume that the Endgame directors didn’t care a whole lot about Bucky but really really really wanted to bring Peggy back because they’re tired of Stucky fans, and that they thought the consistent portrayal of Thor as a strong muscular god was stupid so they were going to tear that down and mock him, and that Chris Hemsworth was bored with it too and wanted to do the exact opposite of IW, and that they didn’t like Loki at all but recognized that he’s a fan favorite so they grudgingly gave him a cameo instead of following up on IW’s obvious foreshadowing, and maybe that something happened behind the scenes between movies where Tom Hiddleston didn’t want to be involved anymore or he and Chris had a major falling out. I would have probably guessed, too, that Endgame was filmed by a team who hadn’t worked on any Marvel movies before but felt like they were making up for it by putting in a bunch of fanservicey callbacks to previous films.

and the reality is, not only were these two films made by the exact same creative teams with the exact same vision, they were also filmed at the same time and essentially made as  _one movie_. there was no issue of one set of directors wanting to show up the others or deliberately mistreating the previous directors’ favorite characters. there was no time between filming for things to go sour behind the scenes (some of the stuff about Hemsworth does seem to be at least partially true, but it didn’t happen between these two films). but  _that’s how it feels_ , and it’s just…it’s baffling, it really is.


	4. Rappin' With Cap is sad actually

the whole context is that it’s basically a joke, right? obviously it’s relevant to Peter because of all the Civil War stuff but for the most part it’s there so audiences can laugh at a fun cameo. because, I mean, it’s ridiculous–in part because we know Steve as a badass action hero and here he is doing these unbearably lame PSAs for high schoolers, and partly because of things like “what’s REALLY cool is following the rules, and I know this because I’m the guy who regularly breaks all of them”. there’s definitely some secondhand embarrassment if you like Steve, but it’s still funny.

then you get to the little bonus scene where he interrupts himself with something like “how many more of these are there?” and it’s still funny in a different way because now he’s sort of in on the joke, but at the same time it’s like…he’s tired. he’s not having fun. he doesn’t especially want to be here, doing this, even if he thinks it’s more or less a good cause and a good use of his time (debatable). he’s going along with it and he’s going to record all these stupid PSAs because he said he would but he would really like to be done now, please. and, you know, that’s enough to make me feel bad for the guy. but then if you consider the actual context–

he’s wearing the Avengers 1 suit, right? he gets that suit in Avengers 1, and by the time we see him again in The Winter Soldier, he’s working with SHIELD and wearing a different, much less flashy suit. so we can probably assume the PSAs were filmed fairly shortly after Avengers 1 and before he joined SHIELD. and part of Steve’s whole thing is that he’s the man out of time, so he’s always somewhat out of place, set adrift, no matter what else is going on, but at that particular point…he’s only been thawed out for a few weeks. absolutely everything he knows has changed. all his old connections are gone and his new ones are tenuous at best. he doesn’t know what he should be doing, and he  _definitely_  doesn’t know what he wants to be doing. Sam asks him “what makes you happy?” at the beginning of The Winter Soldier, and Steve gives him that horribly sad, self-deprecating smile and says “I don’t know.” 

everything is different. he has no idea what he wants to do with his life, he’s struggling even to know what the  _right_  thing to do is, so in the absence of knowing either of those things, well…there are always other people who are pretty sure what they want him to do. one of the criticisms I saw leveled at Avengers 1 was that Steve was out of character, because he seemed too uptight and said things like “we have orders, we should follow them” and “was that the first time you’ve lost a soldier”, compared to The First Avenger where his default position was “I will fight ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE who gets in the way of me doing what’s right”.  but he addresses that in the same conversation with Sam, something like “I tried to get back into it, follow orders…” and that wasn’t any good either, but  _he didn’t know what else to do_. 

so when somebody, probably the Department of Education or something similar, came to him with this cool idea about Relating To The Youths by making these awful PSAs, well–he did the dancing monkey thing before, right? he hated it but he didn’t know what to do with himself and nobody really knew what to do with him, and people told him it was for a good cause, so he swallowed his pride and did it. the videos are another form of the exact same thing, and just like last time, he agreed to make himself look ridiculous for a theoretically good cause, largely because he had no idea what else to do. because he was completely unmoored, because he didn’t know what he wanted or what he should be doing or even what made him happy, because he didn’t  _have_  anything or anyone else, because doing what he’s told and making a fool of himself to help people is at least a little bit familiar. 

he figures himself out a bit when he joins SHIELD, probably, or at least that gives him some sense of purpose and direction even if he’s still depressed, but honestly? those videos were made at what was probably one of the lowest, most directionless points of his extremely weird life, and it’s possible they wouldn’t have been made at all if he’d felt even a little more sure of himself, his place in the world, and his ability to choose the right thing and do it. and once that context occurred to me, yeah, I started mostly seeing the PSAs as sad rather than funny.

([originally posted July 31, 2019; go reblog it if you have Tumblr and you're also sad now](https://thelightofthingshopedfor.tumblr.com/post/186677907043/meta-about-why-the-captain-americavideos-make-you))


End file.
